AI chip exports stalling

U.S. approvals for Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices artificial-intelligence chip exports to China are slowing as the Commerce Department’s export office loses staff and reviews pile up. (bloomberg.com) The bottleneck sits inside the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Commerce unit that writes export rules and signs off on sensitive shipments. Bloomberg reported on April 10 that the bureau has lost dozens of experienced employees over the past year, amounting to nearly 20% turnover in rulemaking and licensing staff. (bloomberg.com) People familiar with the process told Bloomberg that license reviews that once moved faster are now stretching into months, and the number of processed licenses has fallen by about 25%. The backlog runs into billions of dollars in delayed exports, including shipments bound for U.S. allies as well as China. (ttnews.com) These licenses matter because advanced artificial-intelligence chips are treated like dual-use tools: they power chatbots and cloud services, but they can also support military and surveillance systems. The Bureau of Industry and Security is the agency that decides which chips can legally leave the United States and under what conditions. (bis.gov) (congress.gov) The backlog comes after several rounds of tighter semiconductor controls. On December 2, 2024, the Bureau of Industry and Security posted new rules refining controls on advanced computing, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, high-bandwidth memory, and related foreign-produced items. (federalregister.gov) (bis.gov) Those rules were followed by company-specific licensing hits in 2025. Nvidia said on April 15, 2025, that the U.S. government told it a license would be required to export its H20 chip to China, and the Commerce Department imposed similar licensing requirements on some Advanced Micro Devices chips the next day. (techcrunch.com) (cnbc.com) The policy has also shifted in the other direction. Mayer Brown wrote in January 2026 that the Trump administration had formalized measures easing some licensing for advanced artificial-intelligence chips to China while setting new application criteria, adding another layer of rule changes for companies and regulators to interpret. (mayerbrown.com) That leaves chipmakers dealing with two separate constraints at once: what the rules allow on paper, and how fast the government can process the paperwork in practice. Industry lawyers at Miller & Chevalier said the 2025 licensing requirements for Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices likely pointed to a broader rewrite of China chip controls. (millerchevalier.com) China remains too large a market for U.S. chip companies to ignore even with restrictions in place. Nvidia’s 2026 annual report says two direct customers accounted for 22% and 14% of total revenue, mainly in compute and networking, underscoring how concentrated demand for these products has become. (sec.gov) Commerce has not publicly laid out a detailed staffing recovery plan on the Bureau of Industry and Security website. Until that changes, export control is working not just as a national-security rulebook, but as a queue. (bis.gov)